Exposure VS Attendance?

[Guest wildrover]

I know USF, gets a few bucks when they're on TV but when games start getting moved from Saturday it usually means the attendance numbers take a hit.

SMAZZA isn't the only one echoing discontent with the idea of moving the Pitt game.  My father, a season ticketholder, said the other day, "Its not fair to people who buy they're tickets early".  I imagine the fainess can be argued later but the fact is that he isn't really happy about it either.

So my question is, what does "Exposure" do for us that outweighs having people in the seats.  Last year's Homecoming game I think is a good example of why not to move games.  Our attendance was horrible and we showed the country a pretty empty stadium.  Is that good exposure?  

I really applaud ESPN giving some lesser known programs attention and but they aren't gonna do it against an Ohio or Notre Dame game, hence the Wed, Thurs and FRi night games.  Is it really worth it to irk the season ticket holders for the Exposure?

[BULLO12]

Rover all we have heard lately is: Where is South Florida...Miami?  How long have you had football?  I didn't know USF had football.  And these questions will keep being asked until our EXPOSURE is HIGH on the radar.

Give it time.  

I can't wait for the day when people are told there is a 5 year waiting list for season tickets or season tickets are passed on to heirs in wills.  Then we will have made it in a sense.

[dabull80]

We make a big deal outing for homecoming and it really screwed up our annual event when they moved the game.  I hope we don't have to keep doing this long because we may lose local fans.

[Jamie]

Don't worry dabull, there's no one who wants to move the homecoming game against Army to another date. That one is signed, sealed, and delivered for October 16.

[bulls96go]

the exposure helps recruiting which we need if we are going to get

good enough to be a player on the national stage.

unlike many other teams i see us growing out of a need to do this

except rarely.  we need enough stature that we get saturday games

that takes time.

[WoolyBully]

Hmmm...that's a tough question.

I don't know how USF runs their cost/benefit analysis for games but I would assume that the only guarantee they have, dollar wise, is a season ticket.  The 'walk up' crowd is probably figured at $x. Weigh only the variable 'walk up' dollar against the revenue from a televised game and you wind up with a relatively hard figure, but then, we're stuck having to try to put a value on the intangible 'exposure' benefit as well.

I don't think USF is now in a position to ever say no to ESPN/ESPN2. For instance, we could still have some shuffling to pick up a Thursday night - or dare I say it - or a Friday night game as well.  

I am a bit more flexible regarding scheduling. I've bought my season tix, so everything else gets scheduled around game days...that's just me.  Truthfully, if ESPN did schedule the Pitt game for Monday, you have to realize that that honestly does give you almost four months to deal with it.

[smazza]

the problem is that when things go bad,espn will not be there and you pissed off your loyal season ticket holders.Our program is too young to piss off  fans.

USF cannot take fans for granted.

pitt game is also a margee opponent.

have saturday night games consisting of 1aa teams and bad 1a teams also  isn't fair to fans.

hopefully game will be moved to sunday.

WB- for people that might travel to game.monday  is tough because of work tuesday.

i wounder how pitt fans feel about change?

wildrover- if your father wants to commiserate he can he email me.

exposure being on espn on labor day at 4 isn't that great otherwise other teams would want that slot

i am in minority on this board

but,i am not the only one pissed if game is moved to monday I assure you

[WoolyBully]

Well...that brings up, relative to Pitt, another issue. How many people - seriously - would you guess are traveling from out of the commuting area for Bulls games anyway? There may be a fist-full of fans that have an arduous trek to RayJ, but the bulk of the folks attending are within driving and tailgating distance.

Maybe if there were thousands of fans for whom Monday was a problem, it would be different, but I believe that USF knows that Pitt is a big enough draw that to hold the game on Monday for ESPN outweighs holding it on Saturday night for the local TV (assuming it was to be televised locally to begin with) market.

[Papa_Bull]

USF Might Get More National Exposure

A Tribune staff, wire report

Published: Apr 25, 2004

TAMPA - ESPN and Conference USA officials are interested in moving another USF home football game.

Two weeks after ESPN expressed interest in moving South Florida's season opener against Pittsburgh from Sept. 4 to Labor Day, Sept. 6, the sides are interested in moving the Bulls' regular-season finale against Memphis from Nov. 27 to Nov. 26.

The two ESPN games would give the Bulls valuable national exposure, but likely would hurt attendance. It also would give the Bulls a short preparation week for both games.

USF will appear on ESPN/ESPN2 in a Friday night road game at Louisville on Oct. 22.

Gregg Becnel

[Guest wildrover]

Personally, I think winning will answer all the questions but it would be nice to show the country a usf game without hurting our attendance.  When we do that we might make our selves better known but are we going to become better known the way we want.  Why is somebody gonna want to watch a team is tampa if they're in Atlanta if we can't even get the people in Tampa to come watch.  National expsoure is one thing, Filler TV for ESPN is another.